Dolls
by Psychedelicate Poltergeist
Summary: Sasori was his own master. Was, because the old Sasori had sacrificed himself, quite willingly, in order to allow the new Sasori to take his place. The new Sasori had intended to stay on Earth forever, never breaking down and never letting emotions weaken him. But then, the new Sasori's motives and goals began to change from under his very nose. (Light SasoDei, oneshot)


A/N: Loosely inspired by the Kagamine Rin song 'Dolls', this is my theory of how Sasori's characterisation works, especially in his relationship with Deidara. It does contain SasoDei, but it's only light shounen ai – nothing more, nothing less.

Also, for the purpose of this fic, let's say Sasori survived the battle against Sakura and Chiyo. Deidara still dies though, in the same way he did in canon.

Please enjoy and tell me what you think.

-x-x-x-x-x

_**Dolls**_

-x-x-x-x-x

As a puppet – as a living, somewhat breathing doll who had about 10% of human organs remaining – Sasori didn't feel a thing. If he had to touch something burning, his timbered hand would catch on fire and he'd have to spend an hour or so repairing it but, at the end of the day, the fire would only be a light breeze whiffing through his fingers. And when he killed his victims, took them back to Akatsuki base and spent the entire night converting them into dolls like himself – only of the still, inanimate, lifeless variety, like a plush toy sitting on a shelf staring at nothing – he didn't feel pain nor shame. When he was human he was afraid of killing, and afraid of being killed. When he became a puppet, all of his fears had diminished, unable to disturb him.

Sasori was a doll with no master. No master besides himself, because he, the shaking, terror-stricken Sasori of the past, had carved a masterpiece that quickly evolved to be the aloof, numb Sasori of the present. In short, Sasori was his own master. Was, because the old Sasori had sacrificed himself, quite willingly, in order to allow the new Sasori to take his place. The new Sasori had intended to stay on Earth forever, never breaking down and never letting emotions weaken him. It was, indeed, a twisted way to get over the death of his parents – as if constructing puppets out of their corpses weren't enough – but the world as a whole was unfair. Completely and utterly unfair. Only the rest of the Akatsuki understood.

But then, the new Sasori's motives and goals began to change from under his very nose.

His current partner, Deidara... Now, Deidara was pretty much Sasori's polar opposite. The yang to Sasori's yin, the sun to his moon, the fire to his ice. Upon first appearence, Sasori had inferred that the sun would soon die out and the fire would fade away so that the moon and the ice would live in solitude once more. While his prediction was correct, it did take a few years for Deidara to finally die, but he still kicked the bucket at the tender age of nineteen. Then again though, Deidara did believe that true art was brief, fleeting; a stark contrast to Sasori's beliefs that it was infinite, eternal. The clay master had wanted to go out with a bang, and he'd done just that.

The puppet's judgements and ambitions had been shifting for the better ever since Deidara had joined Akatsuki. They only wanted to wait for the right time to make themselves heard. And the right time had come, two weeks after Deidara's death had been confirmed.

Sasori was due to earn a new partner soon, so he figured that now was a really good time to clean out his room and rid every bit of Deidara's personal belongings he could find. As he browsed his ex-partner's drawers, he came across a small book that looked relatively new. Nothing was written on the cover; it was just a simple little book made of black leather. His best bet was that this was Deidara's journal. What would he write in there, though? Inspiration for new clay bombs or jutsu? Personal thoughts on whatever horrible life – and Sasori neither knew nor cared about what shit the brat had gone through – he'd endured before joining Akatsuki? Or maybe it was a visual diary where he sketched down whatever was on his mind?

There wasn't a lock on the book, or any sort of notice advising the Suna missing-nin to not open it if he valued his life, so just how confidential it was supposed to be was inexplicable.

_It's not as though I'm going to discover something life-changing or anything_, he supposed. But, against his bitter judgement, his nimble fingers held the artefact up and turned to the first page.

The contents of it appeared to be a journal entry. Deidara's writing was quite different from his speech, notably because of the absence of him saying 'un' after almost every sentence his mouth would spit out. Sasori had always assumed that it was a mere verbal tic and nothing else – he was right.

He was, to his surprise, incorrect about his earlier assumption of not finding out anything worth his time.

_Wednesday, June 13_

_Y'know, there's something about Master Sasori I've always wondered about. If he is a puppet, then who made him? Don't puppets always have a master? Who's his master? Where is he? He's not dead, is he? I know that we're not supposed to be too curious about each others' lives before we joined the Akatsuki, but I find it so... _strange_ that Master Sasori is a puppet without a master..._

_Hey, I just realised. I always call Sasori my master, but do I really think of him as such? I mean, he's a puppet and I'm a human – shouldn't it be the other way around? And even if it were, I still can't be his master because I didn't make him. I guess he is a master in the way that he creates puppets – he's only the best of the best, after all!_

_Oh, I gotta go now. Leader-sama just called Master Sasori and I to his office. I think we have a new mission._

Sasori turned the pages to find any further entries, but they were all blank to his utmost puzzlement. The lone entry had been written two months before Deidara had died. The two artists had indeed been assigned to a mission that day, but it was a simple diplomatic mission that lasted for less than a week. It was quite possible that the ex-Iwa-nin had forgotten about his journal overtime, or just plain abandoned it.

What baffled Sasori even more was the entry itself, the thoughts Deidara had thought two and a half months ago. Why did he want to know who his master was? Only Orochimaru had been this curious about his personal business, and in the end he'd turned right around and betrayed his trust. Furthermore – and Sasori really, really should've questioned it ages before – why did Deidara think of him as his master? Not one of his past partners had ever been so... respective of him and remained so even when he was this close to injecting his deadliest poison into their weak, breakable human skin.

Sasori had been in the Akatsuki for a long time now – almost twenty years, to be exact. The organisation's allies knew his name, knew how powerful he was, and thus treated him with honour and appreciation. The other members of Akatsuki got along with him decently at most, and knew that messing with him was simply a bad idea. But Deidara... Deidara's idea of respect was different. Nobody had ever called him 'Master', nobody had stuck by him all the way through, nobody at least understood his reasonings for turning innocent people into puppets as a fate worse than death...

But Deidara had done all of the above. And only Deidara.

The reasons were unclear even to him, but after that revelation, Sasori had neglected his daily routine of polishing his wood and checking his heart to ensure it was in perfect condition. Overtime, the puppet slowly began to wear down; his wood was becoming chipped, his speed was decreasing and he responded to things slower than usual. The rest of the Akatsuki weren't truly concerned until his left arm popped straight out of its socket and his eyesight was deteriorating.

"Geez, what's up with you these days?" Kakuzu grumbled as he picked up the lone arm. "You trying to kill yourself or something?"

"That is none of your business," Sasori spat as he shoved the stitched-nin aside and sauntered off to his room.

The rest of Akatsuki glanced warily at each other, before shrugging carelessly. They'd find a replacement – they always did.

-x-x-x-x-x-

By that night, he was only able to lie on his bed. He couldn't move, but he could blink, and open his mouth to form a word or two. He was almost comatose now. It didn't hurt a bit, and it was, in fact, a comfortable, peaceful way to go. His body was now far from beautiful, but it was still going to be there, lying on this bed, at least until he was going to get buried. Deidara was nothing more than spilled, burned organs right now – that would've been a terrible way to kiss the world goodbye.

The absence of busying himself left time for a lot of thinking and questioning, though. Did he really want to do this? He'd never wanted to die, and he'd wanted to reside in this planet forever as an eternal being. Now that he thought about it, there wasn't even anything much worth staying in this world.

Because he couldn't move his head, he could only dart his eyes to the direction of his puppets briefly, only catching a glimpse on the one he'd been working on. He treasured his puppets more than anything else – no, that was a lie, he realised, as images of his parents, caring and happy, floated up to his mind. He saw his mother, cooking dinner and tending to her garden, and his father, going out on missions and returning a week later with necessities and treats for his wife and child. He saw family times in going to the beach, eating at a restaurant, visiting relatives...

Just as Sasori managed to dispel these thoughts, new ones bubbled up – this time focusing the spotlight on a blonde-haired boy. The boy who saw him as his master... the boy who respected him the right way when no one else could...

But he was a brat. Why was he thinking about the brat? And why was he being so emotional right now anyway? When he turned himself into a puppet, he had kept his full brain intact, but filtered out any emotion-related things the brain would transfer to the rest of his body. Now that he was weakening, the jutsu he'd placed to prevent these thoughts was likely to be wearing off right now. Great. Now he was going to die with regrets and anguish and petty, petty emotions that humans killed themselves over. But then again, now that he thought about it, was he ever happy since becoming a puppet? No, of course not, he was neither happy nor sad, not even angry, not even when he whipped Deidara with his scorpion tail because he was messing with his potions. That had simply been an act of instinct...

Deidara. Why did that brat keep coming back to his head? Did he really want to leave the Earth, so rotting, so... normal in favour of his last partner? Even after all he'd done for him, the brat was still a brat, and Sasori would never think of him as any other way.

Besides his master.

No, that wasn't right... Deidara'd never made him, he'd made himself. His true master, the old Sasori, was gone, and he had no intention of returning.

But then again, here was the new Sasori, lying in his death bed, with a smile on his face. It wasn't a cruel, twisted smile he wore as he busied himself with his puppets or injected a poison into an enemy. It wasn't an all-knowing smirk that appeared when Deidara gave him a stupid, unintelligent rebuttal about why true art was fleeting. It was one of those smiles he had as a small, small child when his mother read him a bedtime story, kissed his temple and promised to see him in the morning.

_I'm going to find my Master. I can smile now._

Akasuna no Sasori passed away for good at 5:06 AM early that Sunday morning, with that same smile lingering on his face for all eternity.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Sasori was rather surprised to awaken in order to find himself lying on a bed of clouds. How had he come to Heaven, after all of the sins he'd committed? Shouldn't he be in Hell, where he slept on a bed of fire and got punished for eternity... like Deidara?

Panic dominated his being at the realisation. Panic... it'd been a long time since he'd experienced it.

He hadn't made it. He hadn't reached him.

"Dei..." He sat up abruptly, glacing around wildly at the figures clad in white. "No..."

He jumped to his feet and walked hastily around the higher plane of existence, keeping his eyes peeled for a male with long, flowing blonde hair kept up in his trademark half-ponytail. Unfortunately, no such boy was found.

Desperately, he caught sight of a blonde-haired girl, just sitting on a single cloud, seemingly lost in thought. He leaped skilfully over to the fluffy cloud.

"E-excuse me, I'm looking for a blonde boy named Deidara... is he here?" He questioned. He briefly chided himself for sounding so pathetic and so unlike the serial killer he'd lived to be and so... so much like the old Sasori, afraid of killing and afraid of being killed.

The girl looked up – Sasori did a double take. She had two slitted, yet bright and mischievious, blue eyes that put Heaven's sky to shame. Both eyes were exposed completely, since her hair was completely and utterly loose, not a single strand hanging in her face. She, just like everyone else, was wearing a soft white gown and comfortable sandals. Soft pearly wings protruded from her back – again, just like everyone else's. What was more, now that Sasori had a better look at her... she wasn't a girl at all.

Something moist began to form under Sasori's eyes. The fact that he was crying, for the first time in two decades, was confusing enough, but the fact that he was smiling as he let the salty substance escape his eyes and stream down his cheeks was even more perplexive. He finally looked down at his own body, and it all clicked.

The cool timber of his legs and arms had disappeared, replaced with a light pink texture of smooth limbs. He assumed that the rest of his body was now like this, too. His wooden limbs had been replaced with real ones of bones and flesh.

He was human. Or something akin to one, anyway. And right now, he felt no pain, physically or emotionally.

"M-Master Deidara..." He choked out. His happiness was overwhelming him, betraying the jaded puppet he once was, betraying the world of darkness he'd lived in for so many years as he collapsed into the warm cushion that were the arms of his last partner. He didn't know any other way to express his joy but lie there, grinning from ear to ear and sobbing.

Deidara, meanwhile, looked pleasantly surprised at Sasori's new nickname for him. "So I'm your master, un?" He chuckled in good humour. "I don't remember ever making you." He smiled gently down at the redhead in his arms. "And besides, Pinocchio, you're a real boy now, un."

"Sh-shut up!" Sasori blubbered, the smile never leaving his face.

"I've never seen you like this before, un," Deidara continued. "Were you ever this emotional before you became a puppet?"

"I'm just so g-glad... to have you here..."

"As I am glad that you came here, un."

Deidara's life had ended with a brief, astounding bang. Sasori had abandoned life in favour of a more pleasant, soothing form of his art. Fleeting and eternal... both artists and both forms of art had found their happy endings. There was still just one thing, though, that would've made Sasori's ending even happier..

"Master Deidara?"

"Yes, un?"

"My parents. Are... are they here?"

"Both of them are, Sasori." The redhead's eyes widened.

"I'm... not your master anymore?!

"No, we've switched roles now haven't we, un?"

Sasori smiled brightly up at him. "I found my Master," he proclaimed softly. "I can smile now." He confidently took Deidara's hand into his.

"So, un, wanna go see your parents?"

"I... missed them so much..." Sasori admitted.

Deidara laughed. "I'll take that as a yes then. C'mon, un, follow me."

Their angelic wings fluttered like butterflies as they ascended from the clouds and flew off, their happiness never, ever dying.

_~Owari~_


End file.
